Kharosthi - WikiHQ

Kharosthi script (), also known as the Gandhari script (), was an ancient Indic script originally developed in the Gandhara Region of the north-western Indian subcontinent, between the 5th and 3rd century BCE. Primarily used by the people of Gandhara in various parts of South Asia and Central Asia, Kharosthi remained in use until it died out in its homeland around the 5th century CE. It was also in use in Bactria, the Kushan Empire, Sogdia, and along the Silk Road. There is some evidence it may have survived until the 7th century in Khotan and Niya, both cities in Tarim Basin.

History

thumb|Routes of ancient scripts of the subcontinent traveling to other parts of Asia (Kharosthi shown in blue)

The name Kharosthi may derive from the Hebrew , a Semitic word for writing, The script was earlier also known as Indo-Bactrian script, Kabul script and Arian-Pali.

Scholars are not in agreement as to whether the Kharosthi script evolved gradually, or was the deliberate work of a single inventor. An analysis of the script forms shows a clear dependency on the Aramaic alphabet but with extensive modifications. Kharosthi seems to be derived from a form of Aramaic, which was used in administrative work during the reign of Darius the Great (in contrast with the monumental Old Persian cuneiform used for public inscriptions).

While the Brahmi script remained in use for centuries, Kharosthi seems to have been abandoned after the 2nd–3rd century AD. Because of the substantial differences between the Semitic-derived Kharosthi script and its successors, knowledge of Kharosthi may have declined rapidly once the script was supplanted by Brahmi-derived scripts, until its re-discovery by Western scholars in the 19th century. and by Carl Ludwig Grotefend (in 1836, published in , Germany), with Grotefend "evidently not aware" of Prinsep's article, followed by Christian Lassen (1838). They all used the bilingual coins of the Indo-Greek Kingdom (obverse in Greek, reverse in Pali, using the Kharosthi script). This in turn led to the reading of the Edicts of Ashoka, some of which were written in the Kharosthi script (the Major Rock Edicts at Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi).

The study of the Kharosthi script was recently invigorated by the discovery of the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, a set of birch bark manuscripts written in Kharosthi, discovered near the Afghan city of Hadda just west of the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. The manuscripts were donated to the British Library in 1994. The entire set of British Library manuscripts are dated to the 1st century CE, although other collections from different institutions contain Kharosthi manuscripts from 1st century BCE to 3rd century CE, making them the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered.

Alphabet

thumb|The words inscription of the [[dharma () in Edict No. 1 of the Major Rock Edict of Ashoka (circa 250 BCE).]]

Kharosthi is mostly written right to left. Some variations in both the number and order of syllables occur in extant texts.

The Kharosthi alphabet is also known as the arapacana alphabet, and follows the order.

:a ra pa ca na

:la da ba ḍa ṣa

:va ta ya ṣṭa

:ka sa ma ga stha

:ja śva dha śa kha

:kṣa sta jñā rtha (or ha)

:bha cha sma hva tsa

:gha ṭha ṇa pha ska

:ysa śca ṭa ḍha

This alphabet was used in Gandharan Buddhism as a mnemonic for the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, a series of verses on the nature of phenomena; this is analogous to the Shiva Sutras of Brahmic scripts. In modern Himalayan and East Asian Buddhism, the first line arapacana is preserved in the mantra of Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of transcendent wisdom.

Consonants

{|class="wikitable letters-table letters-violet"

| rowspan=2|

! colspan=2|Unvoiced

! colspan=2|Voiced

! rowspan=2|Nasal

! rowspan=2|Semivowel

! rowspan=2|Sibilant

! rowspan=2|Fricative

! Unaspirated

! Aspirated

! Unaspirated

! Aspirated

! scope=row | Velar

! scope=row | Palatal

! scope=row | Retroflex

! scope=row | Dental

! scope=row | Labial

! scope=row | Other

A bar above a consonant can be used to indicate various modified pronunciations depending on the consonant, such as nasalization or aspiration. It is used with k, ṣ, g, c, j, n, m, ś, ṣ, s, and h.

The cauda changes how consonants are pronounced in various ways, particularly fricativization. It is used with g, j, ḍ, t, d, p, y, v, ś, and s.

The dot below is used with m and h, but its precise phonetic function is unknown.

Vowels and syllables

thumb|Kharoshthi on a coin of [[Indo-Greek king Artemidoros Aniketos, reading Maues, King of kings and son of Artemidorus, ().

]]

Kharosthi includes only one standalone vowel character, which is used for initial vowels in words. Other initial vowels use the a character modified by diacritics. Each syllable includes the short /a/ sound by default, with other vowels being indicated by diacritic marks.

Long vowels are marked with the diacritic . An anusvara indicates nasalization of the vowel or a nasal segment following the vowel. A visarga indicates the unvoiced syllable-final /h/. It can also be used as a vowel length marker. A further diacritic, the double ring below appears with vowels -a and -u in some Central Asian documents, but its precise phonetic function is unknown.

Salomon has established that the vowel order is /a e i o u/, akin to Semitic scripts, rather than the usual vowel order for Indic scripts /a i u e o/.

{| class="wikitable letters-table letters-violet"

|+ Vowels

! colspan="6" |Vowels

! colspan="3" |Other syllablediacritics

!diacritics

!short vowels

!long vowels

!examples with

Additional marks

Various additional marks are used to modify vowels and consonants: Its precise phonetic function is unknown.

| || ṃ || align=center | + → &lrm; || align=left | An anusvara indicates nasalization of the vowel or a nasal segment following the vowel. It can be used with -a, -i, -u, -r̥, -e, and -o.

| || ḥ || align=center | + → &lrm; || align=left | A visarga indicates the unvoiced syllable-final /h/. It can also be used as a vowel length marker. Visarga is used with -a, -i, -u, -r̥, -e, and -o.

| || ◌̄ || align=center | + → &lrm; || align=left | A bar above a consonant can be used to indicate various modified pronunciations depending on the consonant, such as nasalization or aspiration. It is used with k, ṣ, g, c, j, n, m, ś, ṣ, s, and h.

| || || align=center | + → &lrm; || align=left | The cauda changes how consonants are pronounced in various ways, particularly fricativization. It is used with g, j, ḍ, t, d, p, y, v, ś, and s.

| || ◌̣ || align=center | + → &lrm; || align=left | The precise phonetic function of the dot below is unknown. It is used with m and h.

| rowspan=5 | || rowspan=5 | (n/a) || || align="left" | A virama is used to suppress the inherent vowel that otherwise occurs with every consonant letter. Its effect varies based on situation:

| align=center | &lrm; + &lrm; + &lrm; + &lrm; → &lrm; || align="left" |When not followed by a consonant the virama causes the preceding consonant to be written as a subscript to the left of the letter before that consonant.

| align=center | &lrm; + &lrm; + &lrm; → &lrm;

| rowspan=3 align=left |When the virama is followed by another consonant, it will trigger a combined form consisting of two or more consonants. This may be a ligature, a special combining form, or a combining full form depending on the consonants involved. The result takes into account any other combining marks.

| align=center | &lrm; + &lrm; + &lrm; → &lrm;

Punctuation

Nine Kharosthi punctuation marks have been identified:

{| class="wikitable letters-violet"

|+ Numerals